7 notable African tech executives making a mark in corporate America

François Locoh-Donou

He has come a long way from growing up as a kid playing football with his friends in the West African country, Togo, to operating F5 Networks Inc., one of Seattle’s most important publicly-traded tech companies. In 2017, he was named the president, chief executive officer, and a member of the board of directors and has since brought his rich experience in enterprise technology to the company.

F5, a global company entrusted by more than 16,000 of the world’s largest enterprises and government, develops technology solutions that keep applications running smoothly. To date, 48 of the Fortune 50 companies rely on F5 to deliver apps that customers and employees can securely access at any time, on any device, from any location.

Under Locoh-Donou’s leadership, the company achieved a revenue of $2.1 billion in 2017. In his previous career, he held the position of Chief Operating Officer & Senior Vice President at Ciena Corp., Product Manager at Level 3 Parent LLC and Development Engineer at Photonetics SA. He received a graduate degree from Télécom ParisTech, an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and an undergraduate degree from Centrale Marseille.

The tech guru currently serves on the advisory board of Jhpiego, a nonprofit global health affiliate of Johns Hopkins University. The 47-year-old is also the co-founder of Cajou Espoir, a cashew-processing facility that employs several hundred people in rural Togo and exports more than 400 tons of cashew kernels annually to the U.S. and Europe.